ly--that is to say, as well as we can expect,
until we can arrange a fresh programme. If only you were an inventor!"

"If only I were. If only I had money!"

"Why, what would you do?" Gladys asked curiously.

"Give it to you! Give you every halfpenny of it!--But as I haven't
any, I mean to give you all the energy I possess instead."

"Why me? My father you mean!"

"No, you!" Shiel said impulsively, "both of you if you prefer it, but
you first."

"Me first! That doesn't seem very lucid--but I can't stay to hear an
explanation now, for if I miss the four-thirty train I shall miss my
dinner, which would indeed be a calamity!" And slipping on her gloves,
she hurried off, forbidding Shiel to escort her further.

Left to himself, Shiel strolled along the Strand into the Victoria
Gardens, where he bought an evening paper, and sat down to read it.
The first thing that caught his eye was--

"MAGIC IN LONDON"

"This morning the West End received a shock. About twelve o'clock,
a gentleman, fashionably dressed, turned into Bond Street from
Piccadilly, and when opposite Messrs. Truefitt's prepared to cross
over. The street happened just then to be blocked by a long line
of taxis. The gentleman, however, had no intention of waiting till
they had passed. Measuring the distance from one pavement to the
other with his eyes, he jumped about fifteen feet into the air and
cleared the intervening space without the slightest apparent
effort--a feat that literally paralysed with astonishment all who
beheld it. On being remonstrated with by a policeman, who was
highly perplexed as to whether such extraordinary conduct
constituted a breach of the peace or not, the gentleman calmly
leaped over the policeman's head, and striking out with arms and
legs swam through the air.

"Continuing in this fashion, the cynosure of all eyes--even the
traffic being suspended to watch him--he passed along Bond Street
into Oxford Street, where he once more alighted on his feet. On
being questioned by a representative of the Press, it transpired
he was Mr. Kelson, one of the partners in the Modern Sorcery
Company Ltd., whose wonderful performances at their Hall, in
Cockspur Street, have already been reported in these columns."

"I should well like to know how that flying trick is done," Shiel said
to himself. "According to Kelson it is entirely a question of will